Drew Magary

Welcome to Asshole Coach Digest, where we regale you Deadspin folk with stories of the meanest, cruelest, most batshit insane coaches you ever had. Email me your asshole coach story here. Off we go.

Walk that burst appendix off, young man

Will:

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I moved from New York to Texas my freshman year of high school. I was the starting goalie for the varsity soccer team. On the first day of the season I had terrible stomach pains… unbearable pain. I was barely able to walk.

I informed my coach that I would not be able to play because of how I felt. He proceeded to blow up in my face on the bus ride to our opening away game. While driving the bus of course, looking in the giant mirror screaming at me the whole drive. Everyone got off the bus and he held me back. Telling me "You're worthless, your letting me down and your entire team. Carry the fucking water jug to the field."

On any other day carrying the water jug would be no big deal. Being in the pain I was in it was close to impossible. It took me roughly a half hour to carry the jug about 200 yards. Would have been longer if my teammates hadn't helped.

During the game we were getting destroyed 4-0 at halftime and I was laying on my back looking at the sky wondering if I should be going to an emergency room. All of a sudden "coach sensitivity" slams his clipboard straight down on my stomach screaming, "I want you to watch what you're doing to your fucking team today!"

When my mom picked me up that night from school I went straight to the emergency room and was immediately rushed into surgery to have my appendix taken out. It was so bad I was in the operating room 20 minutes after entering the crowded emergency room. I was in the hospital for 3 weeks and lost 30 pounds due to an infection. Coach could not be bothered to visit me during that time.

Also known as The Utah Handshake

Jimmy:

How about just a coach that likes assholes?

A lacrosse coach is a douchebag? I'm stunned.

Chung:

A friend of mine quit the sport after a summer camp with Coach X, namely after a singular incident where he demonstrated the art of the top of the box face dodge. After instructing a young camper to demonstrate a face dodge (basically the same as a basketball crossover move, but with a stick and whiter) against another camper who acted as a defender, he proceeded to berate the offensive camper with words such as "pussy," "faggot," and "nancy" liberally dropped.

After this dressing down in front of a group of 25 12-year-olds, Coach X proceeded to take the young campers stick and demonstrate his idea of a face dodge. At 6'3", 240 lbs., and never without a small stream of Skoal-stained spittle tracing his cheek, he cuts a rather intimidating figure to any layman, let alone a 12-year-old camper trying to defend this wildebeest of a man. On cue, Coach X makes his move, runs over the defending camper, takes two more steps and proceeds to rip a 90-plus mph shot that misses the camp goalie's head by an inch. After a split second to savor his work, he turns around, stands over the vanquished defender and starts screaming "that's how you fucking face dodge, mutherfucker," over and over again until his bulging forehead veins can take no more.

But while only one young soul's health was affected by this tirade, his driving tactics while assistant coach at (name redacted) managed to put thousands of turnpike passengers at risk. The man would use the turn signals opposite of his turning intentions, drift directly and violently into the middle of cars in adjacent lanes, and "pump fake" big rigs in order to clear lanes out for his own passage, or, in his words, "keep those fuckers thinking."

The man, to this day, calls his wife his "girlfriend," and last I heard, which was granted four years ago, still owns a bar in town with the owners quarters only to be used as a coke and sluts den where he, his brother, and his numerous former and current players go those summer nights when said opportunities arise. On the times I visited not a single fake-breasted bartender knew that Coach X was married, and many had "intimate" experience with said back room shenanigans.

Coach X, by his senior year at (name redacted), was the best lacrosse player in the state, and considered by some the best player in the country. In his last game against bitter rivals the (name redacted) he vowed to pull a stunt that would intimidate and unhinge the opponents to the point of making a final win assured. In the minutes leading up to the opening faceoff, as the rivals are going through their pre-game warmup stretches on the other side of half-field, Coach X slowly walks to the midfield faceoff circle, takes a knee, takes his gloves off, and proceeds to stay kneeled for a period of a few minutes, the only movement being slight adjustments to his shorts every few seconds.

As any male who has played sports that required the wear of shorts can attest, the taking of a knee for a period longer than a few seconds generally indicates that said kneeler is urinating through a leghole. But the players can clearly see no stream or splash of urine, and instead are captivated by the sight of the best player on the field kneeling at midfield for no apparent reason. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Coach X puts his gloves back on, stands up straight, and proceeds to shake a frankenfurter-sized piece of shit out of his shorts for everyone to see. With the laughter of players in the background and Coach X nonchalantly walking back towards his bench, one by one rival players rise to take a peek at what they cannot believe they just saw and, horrified, return to their sideline in stunned disbelief at the psycho who they had to play against who just shook a shit out of his shorts. Unsurprisingly, Coach X's team handily won the game.

And this one we call THE UNBLINKING EYE

Dave:

My middle school basketball coach was a grade A asshole. In order to make us better "shooters", he would punish the players who took shots and missed the rim by giving them licks after practice or games. He would line up any offending players and give out the licks in front of everyone. These were not just swats. He would smack your ass hard.

Of course, all this did was make the players scared as hell to shoot the ball for fear of the punishment. We had essentially three players who scored all of the points. My scared ass scored 1. The same coach was pissed because we had only won by 12 points in an out of town game. We were ordered not to speak during the hour-long bus ride back home. When one of the players misplaced his lunch bag and asked where it was, the coach screamed "I've got you now! Licks at the gym!" That poor guy spent the rest of the ride tearing out paper from his spiral notebook and stuffing it in the back of his pants as a cushion, which only made him get even more licks back at the gym.

The name of that coach? Kevin Spacey.

Zach:

My 7th grade basketball coach, we'll call him "Coach C" was probably a lot like many of the coaches we've had in various sports...he lived at home with his mother (in his mid 50's), regaled us with tales of his former athletic glory (none of which went beyond the high school level, of course), and treated us like red-headed step children who just pissed the bed as he wailed basketballs at us as we did various drills to encourage toughness...so basically your typical asshole coach. Well, my coach had one other habit that seemed to distinguish him from other douchebag coaches we've all had... this guy really liked looking at naked boys.

After our first practice we all filed into the locker room, expecting to throw on our clothes and leave...you know, like normal 13 year olds...when "Coach C" stormed in and informed us that after every practice/game we would be required to shower before leaving, and refusal to do so would mean getting kicked off the team. Well, like any other pubescent boy, we looked around exchanging glances that said "You've got to be fucking kidding me," but this was the upper level team in a good high school program, so everyone basically went along with this so as to not jeopardize our spot on the team.

As if having to strip down naked and be in the general vicinity of 11 other naked guys at the age of 13 wasn't fucked up enough, our coach made sure that he was standing inside the shower to make sure "we weren't screwing around." So, every day this dickhead sat there and stared at us showering, with one leg propped up on a cooler that he brought to every practice that one day we discovered was filled with Budweiser... Yeah, it's amazing how these people always seem to migrate towards positions in direct contact with kids.

We finished the year and moved on to the next grade and a new coach, so of course on the first day of practice one of the first questions asked was "Coach, do we still have to shower after every practice?" Our new coach looked at us and went "Why the fuck do I care if you shower or not, I'm not your mother..." It was at that point that it started to dawn on us that something really messed up had happened. To my knowledge nothing ever happened to "Coach C," a few of us mentioned it to other people in the school district, but many of them thought we were making it up so nothing ever became of it. I really have blocked that out because the older I get (I'm 24 now), the more it pisses me off that no one ever did anything about it.... I don't know if this story has the same humor as the other ones you guys have published, but if this guy isn't the personification of an "Asshole Coach," no one is...

Father/coaches are always the best coaches

Matt:

In 5th grade I played for my catholic grade school basketball team, and we were horrible. Just awful. I don't think we ever lost a game by less than 20 points. Keep in mind we were in 5th grade. 5th graders don't score many points. Nevertheless, every team might as well have been the Harlem Globetrotters.

The coach's son was an annoying twerp who started every game despite the fact that he couldn't comprehend the concept of a standard layup. Just like how Derek Zoolander couldn't turn left, the coach's son only understood reverse layups, which consistently slammed the bottom of the rim. The coach would very publicly berate his son during games after each horribly missed lay up, but to no avail. He only understood reverse layups.

One evening practice, presumably after another confidence shattering loss, we got in line to start our standard lay up drill. "do a regular lay up, son, you need to learn how to do these if you want to play high school ball like your old man," our coach said. He son hesitantly dribbled to the net, then, after a few stutter steps, missed another reverse layup.

Coach was stared at his son, squeezing the basketball in his hand. It was the son's turn again. "come on son, its just a jump shot, except you dribble up to the net." you could see the gears turning in the son's mind. He slowly approached the net... Closer...closer... He slowed down on the correct side... Then took two extra steps and actually made a reverse layup. The son raised his arms in triumph. Suddenly, overcome with rage, coached cocked the arm holding a basketball and delivered a screaming fast ball nailing the back of head of his son's head, knocking him down to the ground. "YOU THINK THIS IS A FUCKING GAME?!"

We then horribly lost the next game.

MOOSE IS UP!

Curt:

When I was 13 I began playing Babe Ruth baseball (13-15), and had no idea what I was getting myself into. The team was composed of 9 13-year-olds, a couple 14-year-olds, and 2 15-year-olds. The first day our league allowed practice was March 1st of that year. No other teams practiced that day, mainly because it was SNOWING. It wasn't even a flurry, our entire field was literally covered in an inch of snow...

Our field also had no fence, and I am not exaggerating when I say our outfield was 700+ feet of fair grounds. By the way, I gave up a ton of inside the parkers there but that's a different story... Anyways, I remember our first practice we went over team rules and then took two laps around the gigantic outfield in the freezing cold. The next practice we arrived and he told us to throw our gloves behind the dugout. He gave us wooden paddles with straps on the back of them and made us use them as gloves... keep in mind it was still freezing cold out, it had just snowed a couple days earlier. So we are passing baseball in the freezing cold with wooden ping pong paddles as gloves. Then we take our positions on the field... and I'll admit, I was a 5-foot shortstop at that time and could barely get the ball to 1st base anyways, so playing without a glove didn't help any...

Then he started hitting the ball all over the field and for every ghost runner that scored, we ran after practice... Every 4 or 5 batters he'd get a big grin on his face and yell "MOOSE IS UP!!!" Moose was his alter ego slugger who killed the shit outta the ball... He would usually hit them pretty softly, but if he got the bases loaded with ghost runners, he was pinch hitting Moose. And Moose would promptly hit one in the gap for an inside the park grandslam, which meant we had to run 4X more after practice. or he'd hit it down our third basemen's throat. I remember him line driving the pitcher a few times too, and the pitcher wasn't even pitching, he was just fielding the position.

We finished the season 2-23. He quit after that year and most of the players did too. We won 4 games the next year. My career record in Babe Ruth was like 13-60. Fuck Moose.